


Numbers Game

by shockingfootage



Series: Memoirs of Mister Choi [4]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Gen, Kindergarten Teacher Jeonghan, M/M, Second Grade Teacher Seungcheol, implied cheolsoo, incredible boy wonder Xu Minghao, just referencing seungcheols idiot crush from the previous part, mentioned natural causes animal death, minor language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 16:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shockingfootage/pseuds/shockingfootage
Summary: Mister Choi really wasn't prepared to explain the the circle of life to a seven-year-old on a Friday afternoon of all days, but you just don't make up nonsense to a kid like Xu Minghao.





	Numbers Game

Seungcheol and Minghao were working on the puzzle in the pod between classrooms when Mr. Yoon stepped in to cut through to the science room. He was always one of the most casual people on campus; very candid and unafraid to wear jeans with holes in them which Seungcheol had previously thought were too “edgy” for an elementary school environment, but he figured if Jeonghan could do it then he might be able to get away with it too. He gave up on that quickly and went back to dressing in plain vanilla garb, which Jeonghan affectionately referred to as “straight boy chic” while Seungcheol called it “workplace appropriate, get out of my classroom Jeonghan”.

 

In the days leading up to this one, Seungcheol had been helping Jeonghan check on the chicken eggs incubating in the science room for the kindergarten life cycles unit.

“God only knows why they asked _me_ to look after these things,” Jeonghan had complained the day the eggs arrived.

Stupidly, Seungcheol had been in the staff room during the delivery, and he found himself being dragged along to push the dolly loaded with heavy incubators while Jeonghan carried a small insulated box with the eggs nestled inside.

“And I’m unsure as to why I was roped into helping you,” Seungcheol added gruffly.

“Your classroom is closest,” he griped back, “and I would’ve asked Joshuji but I’m afraid his giant hands would crush the eggs.”

“Are they really that big?”

Jeonghan squinted his eyes and looked back at Seungcheol with incredulity, “like you haven’t noticed.”

He pouted over a defensive (and woefully transparent) stance, “what are you, some kind of gay detective or a kindergarten teacher?”

“Both, bitch.”

“Alright, enough.”

 

Fast forward a week, Jeonghan pointed to the door as he strode past Mister Choi and the small boy, wordlessly asking if Seungcheol could spare a minute to help him check the eggs. He nudged Minghao from across the table, “hey do you wanna help me check on the chicken eggs?”

Minghao was always enthusiastic about being a helper, especially when it was an activity having to do with the younger kids on campus. He had a soft, big brotherly side to him that loved to coddle as much as his other side loved to annihilate any nonsense the other kids brought to class with a silent glare. He was a multi-faceted guy, to keep it simple.

He looked up from arranging his puzzle pieces to lend a firm “yeah!” before scooting into the science room.

It was dimly lit inside, purposefully so so that Seungcheol could hold a flashlight to the back of each egg to look for signs of life. Mr. Yoon delicately cracked opened the incubator lid as Seungcheol snuck the light in. The egg, previously still, now played host to the gentle stirring of the chick inside. Minghao gasped quietly in awe.

“There it is,” he whispered with wide, sparkling eyes. Getting this kid to talk could be like pulling teeth sometimes, so the moment didn’t go unnoticed nor unappreciated.

“There it is,” Seungcheol echoed. They took a minute to watch the embryo in shared awe before moving on to the next in line. The neighboring egg wobbled weightily as Seungcheol brushed the light against the side.The dark mass did not move this time, and it quickly dawned on him that this chick was dead and that he’d have to explain the complicated numbers game of nature to a seven-year-old on a Friday afternoon.

Maybe it was a placebo taking effect, but the egg didn’t seem to light up the same as the last. The orange glow from inside felt less luminescent, and the “miracle of life” or whatever he was supposed to teach to children ebbed away as Minghao started to notice that something was wrong.

He scrunched his nose. “This one isn’t moving like the other one.”

Seungcheol quickly accepted his fate and the conversation that was about to ensue, and turned on his sympathetic learning moment voice. “I think this one didn’t make it.” Carefully chosen words to avoid the inevitable.

Up until that moment, Seungcheol felt as though he couldn’t broach the topic of death with kids. He had told himself that such an intricate concept was almost irrational to try to explain, especially to tiny humans who were only just introduced to life in general, but when the moment approached him in the form of literal dead babies (still in the egg, but the sentiment remains), something switched.

One of the things that made him even remotely good at his job was the fact that he talked to the second graders like he might anyone else, and whether or not some of that went over their heads (i.e. sarcasm and references to potentially nocuous subjects) did not steal from the point. He simply understood them, which meant that he understood when they didn’t want any of that frou frou bullshit. This was one of those times, and the aura of focus and will to be properly informed wafted from Minghao like smoke from a chimney.

“Does that happen a lot?” the boy asked with his eyebrows knit together and looked up at Mister Choi. Minghao was always processing something. Seungcheol amended the thought, as really _all_ kids are processing something at _all_ times, but Minghao really wore his contemplation on his sleeve. He ended up being one of the most complicated kids Seungcheol ever knew, and whereas every adult who worked with him loved him, he didn’t think Minghao felt like they all got him. In the light of the newly acknowledged concept of death, Seungcheol didn’t see sadness or even mourning, but a gentle sort of empathy that nestled into his youthful face.

“Not every egg will hatch,” he started. “Have you ever noticed that animals have a lot of babies all at once?”

“Yeah?” Minghao leaned in close.

Seungcheol rolled his lips together and nodded, “well, they do that because they know not all of them will live.” It came out perhaps franker than he intended, but you gotta rip the bandage off, as they say. He looked up at Jeonghan, dipping his voice to a murmur, “and humans used to do the same thing.” Luckily, that one went right over Minghao’s head.

There were three other incubators on the counter that filled the room with a low, rhythmic humming. “So, what about the rest of these?” Minghao inquired, truly a scientist.

“Some of those will be dead too, probably,” Seungcheol responded matter-of-factly. If they were going to drop the formalities then he might as well commit to total honesty. “And some will be alive, and that’s just how nature does its thing.”

There was a beat of silence, followed by an accepting nod. “Huh.”

What a fucking champion of knowledge. What a conqueror of death and a face of strength through inauspicious discovery. Maybe Seungcheol’s view of Minghao was skewed by the time he spent with him, and he was being “too dramatic” and “Mister Choi why are you crying again”, but people really don’t give kids enough credit for this kind of thing.

They continued along to check the rest, throwing out the eggs that never developed a fetus in the first place and Misters Yoon and Choi making mental notes to keep an eye on the eggs that they weren’t sure about. Minghao would help check on them only one other time after that- there’s only so much you can do with them before a kid gets bored and opts for puzzle time instead.

As it would turn out, only three of the forty-something eggs hatched. Jeonghan speculated that it was the dysregulation of temperature between opening and closing the incubators to check in because yes, Seungcheol may have preached the lesson that not every egg will make it, but in practice it seemed against all odds that less than 1% of them would hatch at all.

He kept that information neatly tucked under the rug because some lessons are simply not as important.

**Author's Note:**

> Minghao just seems like he was the kind of kid who would rather learn about the reproductive system than hear a story about a doofy bird who carries babies in a sheet, but maybe that's just me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! This is one of my favorite memories with a student from my first year and I thought Seungcheol would be equally awestruck by it.
> 
> More Cheolsoo to come in later parts B)
> 
> If you wanna chat, my twitter is @bringitonhong


End file.
